Named one of ArchDaily’s Best New Practices of 2024, (ab)Normal is redefining the boundaries of contemporary inspiration, architecture, and design. This Milan-based interdisciplinary studio, led by architects Mattia Inselvini, Davide Masserini, and Luigi Savio, aims to seamlessly merge architecture, product design, and creative direction into a cohesive practice. Founded in 2017 alongside Marcello Carpino, (ab)Normal's work spans various domains, including art, culture, design, interiors, and fashion. Their projects traverse multiple scales and formats, moving between the virtual and tangible, ephemeral and permanent, speculative and commercial, while integrating iconic elements with nods to popular culture and focusing on the implications of technological progress. Acting as Creative Director for the built environment, (ab)Normal operates across scales and formats, moving between the virtual and tangible, ephemeral and permanent, performative and static.
In an interview with ArchDaily, (ab)Normal shares insights into their “radical” approach to design, their use of technology, and their commitment to creating projects that are both profound and widely understandable. They discuss how their perspective on non-linear design history shapes their work, the strategies they employ to communicate effectively with a broad audience, and the challenges and successes of their interdisciplinary projects. Furthermore, the interview explores the studio’s unique take on combining architecture, product design, and creative direction and how they bridge diverse creative fields to produce innovative, multifaceted projects.
Read on to discover the principles and insights that guide (ab)Normal's multidisciplinary practice.
ArchDaily: How do you define radical design in the contemporary context, and what role do you see it playing in the future of architecture and design?
(AB): The term "radical design" is often used improperly to define an avant-garde approach to architectural design. In the Italian context, it describes a rather homogeneous group of ideas and projects developed between the 1960s and 1980s, which, through a strong propensity for speculation and accelerationism, used design and architecture to narrate the socioeconomic, cultural, and political conditions in which these projects were realized. We believe that today, the radical design of those years can be a very effective tool for understanding the expectations for the future. Moreover, the speculative and experimental approach of the Radical projects has left a very evident and significant imprint on the way the designer's work is conceived today, recovering the profound meaning of the act of designing, which is to look forward. Doing a radical project today, and hopefully also in the future, means outlining the future by re-interpreting the present and the past.
AD: How do you combine architecture, product design, and creative direction in your practice?
(AB): (AB)NORMAL has always been extremely versatile and multidisciplinary, striving to sublimate all creative disciplines into a complete and all-encompassing work. When we started collaborating, we always maintained a collective curiosity towards all creative phenomena with great narrative potential because what interested us was providing a holistic vision of the world around us, using architecture as a language. Consequently, we have always sought to expand our agency, incorporating the roles of designer, storyteller, and creative director, among many others, into that of the architect.
However, as we dug deeper into our experience, we realized that it is not always possible to have full creative control over the project and that working in more complex teams helps to develop deeper and more nuanced project outputs. Working in the creative sectors today means learning new things each time, starting from scratch, and reincarnating into roles alien to us, trying to go beyond our comfort zone because experience does not always help to develop fresh and new ideas. What truly matters is curiosity and attention to contemporary cultural phenomena, both of which are cultivated by expanding the boundaries of one's actions.
AD: You mentioned before that you view design history as non-linear, with significant overlaps between different epochs. Can you elaborate on how this perspective influences your creative process and the designs you produce?
(AB): We don’t believe in the linear progression of history, as we reject the notion of a single historical narrative. We don’t buy into the idea of progress, a concept that feels outdated today because it doesn’t necessarily mean an improvement in lifestyle. In fact, the opposite seems truer: the cyclical return of certain circumstances and the periodic appearance of inevitable and seemingly unpredictable events.
Our generation grew up thinking history had ended, only to find ourselves witnessing the traumatic return of war and geopolitical maneuvers. This undermines the credibility of the deterministic and positivist idea of linear progress toward a better world and forces us to recognize our powerlessness in the face of great upheavals.
This perspective also shapes our understanding of the history of design and the completely anti-hierarchical, often trivial way we blend references, forms, and aesthetic approaches from vastly different eras. In other words, we consciously seek the dissonant clash between historical references that seem unrelated, and from this, we manage to create projects that appear new, even though they are not.
AD: Can you describe your creative process when starting a new project? How do you bridge the gap between creative fields to create an interdisciplinary project?
(AB): Projects at (AB)NORMAL almost always begin with intense research into audio-visual, textual, or material references. In the initial phase, we strive to build a conceptual framework that aligns both with the client's needs and our own background, aiming to create a common ground. Practically, this research manifests as the creation of a concept document, which articulates an idea through references drawn from film, music, popular culture, history, or philosophy. This embryonic phase, present in all our projects, helps us step outside our comfort zone of architectural design, allowing us to translate storytelling into various forms. As previously mentioned, interdisciplinarity is a fundamental trait of our studio, naturally emerging in the design process. This often involves external collaborators, either in advisory roles or through more integrated and ongoing partnerships. Our studio offers clients a comprehensive skill set, including graphic designers, interior designers, videomakers, copywriters, and architects.
AD: What is your relationship with technological advancements, and how do they influence your methodology and designs?
(AB): We view technological progress with both skepticism and great fascination. It's difficult to ignore technological developments when designing a space, as today's design work inevitably goes through the graphical interface of software (first CAD, then BIM), and even the production and prefabrication processes are mediated by machines. Nowadays, even the public dissemination of a project happens on social platforms. Reflecting on technology and its impact on architecture is an essential activity.
(AB)NORMAL, in particular, is obsessed with technology, especially with the aesthetics technology produces. We see the physical presence of technology in space as a kind of ornamental apparatus with a powerful narrative capability, able to redefine a project’s purposes and objectives. We are extremely drawn to spaces designed for machines and how some spaces, like data centers and logistics hubs, are themselves machines.
Moreover, we believe that the software used in architecture—CAD and BIM tools, 3D modeling software, or rendering engines—has profoundly influenced the mental processes of designers of our generation and will continue to shape design in the future. In this regard, we curated the EUROPELAGO exhibition to understand how the widespread use of the same digital tools has led to the emergence of a generation of designers free from traditional geographical and cultural connotations, who identify with a transnational community whose language is the history of commands used to generate shapes and images within the software interface.
AD: Your work combines iconic elements with influences from popular culture. How do you maintain a cohesive design identity while drawing from such diverse influences?
(AB): We do not consciously try to convey a cohesive identity through our projects. Aesthetic consistency emerges because we are often influenced by the same things. There are recurring themes that form the common ground that unites us as designers. Often, our work translates into the choice of pure geometries, mono-materiality, and the unconventional use of materials and construction systems.
These are three recurring strategies in our work, to which we then attach elements from popular culture extracted from cinema, music, or contemporary art. For this reason, in the diversity of our projects, it is possible to recognize a common sensibility.
AD: Describe a project that truly exemplifies the success of your multifunctional, interdisciplinary approach.
(AB): Perhaps the recent project that has allowed us to express ourselves the most in creative fields related to architecture was the exhibition "AN/ARCHIVE: EVENT ONE, THE BODY". The exhibition is part of a broader schedule of initiatives designed to promote the future creation of an archive and fashion library for the Polimoda School in Florence, one of the most prestigious academic institutions in fashion design. In the specific case of this exhibition, we truly handled almost everything, providing support to the curatorship directed by Massimiliano Giornetti and Linda Loppa, designing the exhibition setup, wayfinding, and graphics. The Renaissance exhibition represents a similar case: we also took care of the graphic design for the catalog.
AD: It's challenging to be experimental while also communicating clearly with a wider audience. How do you ensure your projects are both “profound and widely understandable?” Do you have strategies or principles you follow?
(AB): Communicating through space means sparking emotional reflections in the viewer, who often doesn't speak your design language. In other words, it's about connecting through feelings, which are almost always subjective and individual. So, to reach a larger audience beyond your niche, you need to weave in multiple languages, layer the levels of interpretation, and make the project both multifaceted and accessible.
For us, supporting other creative sectors, it’s often tough to create a project that also speaks to the niche of architects. Our projects are engaging and visually appealing to most but sophisticated and deep for the few who can uncover the hidden agenda behind our work. Each project reveals a sequence of cultured references, quirky easter eggs, and rare experiments that are hard to pull off. The result is a project with different interpretations, sometimes contradictory, yet allowing multiple value scales to coexist. The projects we create are inclusive and democratic.
